Short Row Heel with a High Instep
Every so often, I'll hear "I can't use a short-row heel because my feet have a high instep and they don't fit right."
This picture shows my high instep. The sole of the sock is snug to my foot. If I had a third hand I'd poke my foot in the arch so you could see the sock isn't pulling away.
I steal a bunch of stitches from the instep needle and knit my short-row heel on about 70% of the stitches. This was a 52-stitch sock, and I knitted the heel using 36 stitches. (12 on the bottom and 12 on each of the two sides.)
In order to make the heel round at the back and not mule-eared, I don't wrap and turn every row - as I get to the last few short rows, I skip one stitch. So counting from the outer edges, I wrapped 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9--11--13, stealing 13 from the heel needle.
I don't knit a pattern on the top of the foot any more. A couple of years ago, Ajax went to lay down on my feet, and he thumped the top of one foot hard with his elbow as he came down. I got a bruise and one of those electric-shock zaps on the top of my foot, and it hurt for weeks.
It's still a lot more sensitive than it used to be, so no more ribs over my foot's funny bone.
I guess the way I knitted the bottom gray and the top colored is technically intarsia. The first pair of socks I knitted this way was the pair I call the Hot-Foot socks.
Despite being on four needles, they weren't knitted in the round until I got to the spiral ribbing: they were knitted back and forth, and the two yarns twisted around each other where they met and went back the other way.
They are good socks for weather like this.
Monday we woke to more snow, heavy wet sloppy snow that bent the yew bushes and the spruce branches down.
The square thing in the photo is an old railroad freight container, not a full size one, maybe a quarter or a third the length of a freight car. It's our new woodshed and has been doing an excellent job of keeping snow off the wood. It can't blow off like canvas or tarpaulins.
Let me just stitch those two together...
In my woolly socks and my boots, I'm all set for another snowy day!
Labels: Michigan weather, sock knitting, winter
posted by Alwen | 8:22 AM
7 Comments:
Those are gorgeous socks, and I'm going to try that idea of stealing from the instep the next time I do a short-row heel (I have a very high instep myself) -- that looks like it works beautifully. The snow is gorgeous (probably easier to say from here where I don't have to shovel it), it's amazing how much you've gotten this winter.
Nice sock architecture. Thanks for explaining how you do it. They're very pretty too!
Oh, dog elbows can be hard and sharp can't they?
Pretty pretty socks! And aren't you the clever ones to use a rairoad container for a woodshed!
Snow sucks.
I have a high instep and I dont' have problems with short row heels. I like them sometimes for the way they fit.
I'm sitting here right now watching the snow come down.
Beautiful socks - and a great adaptation for your high instep. Very clever!
You must be getting sick of all that snow by now ... hope the wet heavy snow doesn't break any trees.
I took a look over at the Hot-Foot Socks. Did you do the "decr at the back/incr at the front" trick with this pair too? Interesting idea!
The socks look great! I'm going to have to come back to this post when I start knitting socks.
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